Prime Minister Gaston Browne is lamenting the lack of males in Antigua and Barbuda choosing to access higher education opportunities.
The prime minister made sounded the alarm during his keynote address at the inaugural graduation ceremony of the University of the West Indies Five Islands campus on Sunday.
The ceremony maked the matriculation of six female students, who are all teaching professionals.
In applauding the achievement of the women, Browne said, “The underachievement of our males is becoming increasingly worrisome.”
He added that the “issue that currently occupies the attention of my Cabinet as we seek to devise strategies and programs to increase the matriculation and graduation of more males with a university degree”.
Prime Minister Browne added that while all work adds to “national productivity” and embraced “more of our young males need to increase their ambition from climbing the back of a truck to work on a construction site, to achieving a university degree.”
Browne continues on to congratulate the female graduands but was quick to add that it is his hope that males will seek to “emulate” their success.
